MATTIE:—A STRAY.

BY F. W. ROBINSON

THE AUTHOR OF "HIGH CHURCH," "NO CHURCH," "OWEN:-A WAIF," &c., &c.

IN THREE VOLUMES

VOL. I.

LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,
18, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1864.

The right of Translation is reserved.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY MACDONALD AND TUGWELL, BLENHEIM HOUSE,
BLENHEIM STREET, OXFORD STREET.

INSCRIBED
TO
ALFRED EAMES, ESQ.,
ROYAL NAVAL SCHOOL, NEW CROSS,
BY
HIS OLD AND ATTACHED FRIEND
THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

BOOK I. FIGURES IN OUTLINE.

CHAPTER I. Life in Great Suffolk Street
CHAPTER II. Mattie
CHAPTER III. Lodgers
CHAPTER IV. Mr. Hinchford's Experiment
CHAPTER V. Set up in Business

CHAPTER VI. The end of the Prologue
BOOK II. THE NEW ESTATE.

CHAPTER I. Home for Good
CHAPTER II. A Girl's Romance
CHAPTER III. Our Characters
CHAPTER IV. A New Admirer
CHAPTER V. Perseverance
CHAPTER VI. "In the fulness of the heart," etc.
CHAPTER VII. Confidence
CHAPTER VIII. Sidney states his Intentions

BOOK III. UNDER SUSPICION.

CHAPTER I. An old Friend
CHAPTER II. Strange Visitors to Great Suffolk Street
CHAPTER III. Sidney's Suggestion
CHAPTER IV. Perplexity
CHAPTER V. Mr. Wesden turns Eccentric
CHAPTER VI. A Burst of Confidence
CHAPTER VII. The Plan Frustrated
CHAPTER VIII. A Sudden Journey

MATTIE: A STRAY.

BOOK I.

FIGURES IN OUTLINE.

CHAPTER I.

LIFE IN GREAT SUFFOLK STREET.

It was not an evening party of the first water, or given by people of first-rate position in society, or held in a quarter whither the fashionable classes most do congregate. It was a small party—ostensibly a juvenile party—held on the first floor of a stationer's shop in Great Suffolk Street, Southwark.

Not even a first-rate stationers', had the shutters been down and the fog less dense to allow us to inspect Mr. Wesden's wares; but an emporium, which did business in no end of things—cigars, tobacco-pipes, children's toys, glass beads by the skein or ounce, fancy work, cottons and tapes. These, the off-shoots from the stationery business, the news-vending, the circulating of novels in four, five, and six volumes at one penny per volume, if not detained more than three days; a stationery business which report said had not turned out badly for old Wesden, thanks to old Wesden's patience, industry and care, say we—thanks to his screwing and his close-fistedness that would not have trusted his own mother, had she lived, said the good people—for there are good people everywhere—in Great Suffolk Street. Certainly, there were but small signs of "close-fistedness" about the premises on that particular evening; the shop had been closed at an earlier hour than business men would have considered suitable. They were wasting the gas in Mr. Wesden's drawing-room; feasting and revelry held dominion there. There